Asian Women And Intimate Work

Winner of the 2014 Choice Outstanding Academic Title Award Asian women are often labelled with biased stereotypical images, ranging from “subordinate housewife” to “migrant domestic maid,” and “overseas bride.” Asian women, in fact, are being constructed as “women among women.” These feminine roles are related to the various activities that women perform for others in intimate relationships both within and outside the family. This book comprises contributions from a distinguished group of international researchers who examine the historical development of “new women" and “good wife, wise mother,” women’s roles in socialist and transitional modernity and the transnational migration of domestic and sex workers as well as wives.

This volume, the first major study in its field, offers an invaluable stepping-stone to a more informed understanding of the fundamental social changes taking place in Asia – defined as ‘a reconstruction of the intimate and public spheres’. Such changes are being observed worldwide, but previous studies relating to this phenomenon are largely based on Western experiences dating back to the 1970s. Developments in Asia, however, are manifesting both similarities and differences between the two regions. The book’s strongest appeal, therefore, lies in its theoretical orientation, seeking to define frameworks that are most relevant to the Asian reality. These frameworks include compressed and semi-compressed modernity, familialism, familialization policy, unsustainable society, the second demographic dividend, care diamonds, and the transnational public sphere. Such concepts are seen as essential in any discussion concerning the intimate and public spheres of contemporary Asia. Accordingly, Transformation of the Intimate and the Public in Asian Modernity can be seen as a valuable text as well as a work of reference and will be welcomed by social scientists and cultural anthropologists alike. The book comprises an in-depth introduction and ten chapters contributed by scholars from Japan, Korea, Thailand and Canada covering topics ranging from low fertility, changing life course, increasing non-regular employment, care provision, migrant workers, social policies, and family law, to the activities of transnational NGOs, with a special focus on distinctive features of Asian experiences.

A collection that places Asian woman centre stage and challenges a dichotomised view of Asia and the 'west' or 'north'. It offers an understanding of Asian women in their networks of connections through the work of feminist scholars discussing Asian women in North America, Asia, Europe and Australia.

This textbook describes and explains the complex reality of contemporary internal and international migrations in East Asia. Taking an interdisciplinary approach; Tony Fielding combines theoretical debate and detailed empirical analysis to provide students with an understanding of the causes and consequences of the many types of contemporary migration flows in the region. Key features of Asian Migrations: Comprehensive coverage of all forms of migration including labour migration, student migration, marriage migration, displacement and human trafficking Text boxes containing key concepts and theories More than 30 maps and diagrams Equal attention devoted to broad structures (e.g. political economy) and individual agency (e.g. migration behaviours) Emphasis on the conceptual and empirical connections between internal and international migrations Exploration of the policy implications of the trends and processes discussed Written by an experienced scholar and teacher of migration studies, this is an essential text for courses on East Asian migrations and mobility and important reading for courses on international migration and Asian societies more generally.

The Routledge Handbook of East Asian Gender Studies presents up-to-date theoretical and conceptual developments in key areas of the field, taking a multi-disciplinary and comparative approach. Featuring contributions by leading scholars of Gender Studies to provide a cutting-edge overview of the field, this handbook includes examples from China, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and Hong Kong and covers the following themes: theorising gender relations; women’s and feminist movements; work, care and migration; family and intergenerational relationships; cultural representation; masculinity; and state, militarism and gender. This handbook is essential reading for scholars and students of Gender and Women’s Studies, as well as East Asian societies, social policy and culture.

Since the turn of the millennium, significant social, economic, political and technological transformations have brought policy issues to prominence in East Asian societies. This topical Research Agenda finds East Asian social policy at a critical juncture and analyses the driving forces that are shifting contemporary research and diverse policy responses in the region.

Amidst the increasing global trend of cross-border marriage migration, this book offers timely theoretical and empirical insights into contemporary debates about migration and citizenship. Extant scholarship on marriage migration and citizenship have concentrated on East-West inter-cultural marriages and tended to approach citizenship as an individual-centred concept linked to the nation-state, thus fading the family into the background. Focusing on cross-border marriages within Asia, a region where collectivist and familistic values are still prevalent, this book points to the importance of going beyond the state-individual nexus to conceptualise and foreground the family as a strategic site where citizenship is mediated, negotiated and experienced. Through six critical and in-depth case studies on cross-border marriages between East, Southeast, and South Asia, this book reveals how nation-states mobilize patriarchal notions of the family for its citizenship project; how formal frameworks of citizenship structure the trajectory and circumstances of cross-border families; how the repercussions of marriage migrants' citizenship are experienced and negotiated across generations; and how the tensions between the individual, the family and the state are produced along gender, class, race/ethnic, religious, cultural, geographical and generational boundaries. Collectively, this book calls for a rethinking of citizenship from an individual-centred proposition to a family-level concept. Its wealth of case studies and examples make it an essential resource for students, academics and researchers of Sociology, Geography, Anthropology, Politics, International Development Studies and Asian Studies. The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of Citizenship Studies.

Comprising 60.3 percent of the world’s 7.2 billion population, Asia is an enigma to many in the West. Hugely dynamic in its demographic, economic, technological and financial development, its changes are as rapid as they are diverse. The SAGE Handbook of Asian Foreign Policy provides the reader with a clear, balanced and comprehensive overview on Asia’s foreign policy and accompanying theoretical trends. Placing the diverse and dynamic substance of Asia’s international relations first, and bringing together an authoritative assembly of contributors from across the world, this is a reliable introduction to non-Western intellectual traditions in Asia. VOLUME 1: PART 1: Theories PART 2: Themes PART 3: Transnational Politics PART 4: Domestic Politics PART 5; Transnational Economics VOLUME 2: PART 6: Foreign Policies of Asian States Part 6a: East Asia Part 6b: Southeast Asia Part 6c: South & Central Asia Part 7: Offshore Actors Part 8: Bilateral Issues Part 9: Comparison of Asian Sub-Regions